‘Doctor Who and the Underworld’ – Terrance Dicks (Target)

 


Page Count: 123 Pages.

Ooh, I’m not going to enjoy writing this post… Not because of anything to do with the book itself; more to do with the fact that I was over three quarters done with this post on Sunday night, only for my laptop to crash and lose the whole lot. I mean, yes, I should have saved a copy but that’s besides the point ;o)

Anyway… I actually managed to get some reading under my belt, over the weekend, and ‘Doctor Who and the Underworld’ was what I like to call ‘the straightforward one’. Well compared to the more involved ‘Ring’ and whatever the hell was happening in ‘The Boys Omnibus Volume 2’… Yep, it was straightforward and that’s just what this Graeme needed (you’ll hear no apologies from me!) And it was fun too, let me tell you a bit about it…

Exploring the very edge of the known universe, the Doctor, Leela and K9 discover a group of astronauts searching for the lost gene bank of the Minyan race. During this perilous voyage, the astronauts’ craft plunges into the heart of a recently formed planet, wherein an awesome secret is hidden.

How will the Minyan’s quest end? And what must the Doctor wrest from the heart of the Oracle…?

Before I get into the book itself, I’ve just got to say… Minyans? To be fair, the TV serial was first broadcast in 1978 so the first thing I thought of, when reading ‘Minyans’, didn’t count. Even so, and despite the links to Greek Mythology (that pop up during the book), having a race of slaves living underground (under the thrall of a mad computer) and calling them ‘Minyans’ is unfortunate wording from where I'm sat. I’ve got a feeling though that this was more me, and the head space I was in when reading, rather than the book itself, I just had to get that off my chest, carry on everyone ;o)

Regular visitors to the blog (and AI Bots that took a wrong turn, you’re all welcome) will know that as much as I owe Terrance Dicks a debt, his habit of writing the book exactly as it happened on screen is one that annoys me. Luckily, ‘Doctor Who and the Underworld’ is not one of those books. There’s a prologue that puts everything in context (which is good for the likes of me, having never seen the story on TV) and also sets up a potentially interesting discussion around what led to the Time-Lord policy of non-interference, and what might happen if history were to repeat itself. I mean, we know exactly what the Doctor will do (it’s pretty much the whole point) but there’s an extra layer, this time round that adds something to the Doctor’s need to do the right thing. And I liked it.

And Dicks is writing with a bit of a flourish this time round; not so much straying away from the plot as he is just making it shine a little more with moments that flesh out the supporting cast and make ‘The Underworld’ a story that’s being told rather than recounted.Again, I’m very much here for that.

As you well know, I’m the kind of reader who is more than happy to suspend any disbelief and just get on with the good stuff. Having said that though, even I thought that the Doctor was a little too willing to explain anything away by saying ‘oh, it’s the edge of the universe, anything can happen out here.’ You’ve got to play by the rules sometimes, at least a little bit. On the other hand though, I love the idea of a new planet forming around a spaceship so it balances out. And given that at the heart of it (at least from where I was sat, in someone else’s comfy chair), ‘The Underworld’ is very much about ‘the Quest’, I’d say that Dicks really captures not only the action of the story (and the claustrophobia of the setting) but the ennui as well. This is a particularly long quest and some people just want it to end...

I’ve got a feeling that ‘Doctor Who and the Underworld ; would have been perhaps a little too straightforward a tale on the small screen but in this format (and with Dicks seemingly happy to take a few more risks in the telling), the tale is a lot more involved and proved very easy for me to get into.

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